1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sleep/awake circuit, and more particularly to a circuit for automatically setting a sleep/awake state of a computer system.
2. Description of Related Art
With the rapid development of personal computers, development of high performance components of a computer have brought about a corresponding increase in power use. Therefore power waste becomes an issue of greater importance if a computer system is not changed to a power saving state when not in use.
Typically, a sleep/awake circuit will place a computer system in a power saving mode after a delay time has elapsed in which the computer system has not been used. A lack of use is usually determined according to time elapsed since a keyboard or mouse of the computer system has been used. There is usually a sleep/awake button on the keyboard so that a user may manually activate or deactivate the power saving mode. However, power may still be wasted if the user does not manually activate the power saving mode when he or she is done, which allows power consuming processes to continue in the computer system until the delay time has elapsed.
What is desired, therefore, is a sleep/awake circuit for automatically activating or deactivating a power saving mode according to a presence of a user or lack thereof.